Have you felt like your childhood is a long and dragged out sequence of memories, while the last few years of your life seem to have zipped by?
"Time flies", "life is short". These maxims are in my mind figurative ways of expressing the same and only cognitive phenomena: your perception of time gets faster as you get older.
Let me illustrate this phenomena with a basic example.
Say you travel a route for the first time. Your perception of time will be really slow since you are being bombarded with new stimuli and sensations; trying to remember the path you took; being aware of your surroundings, all of these contribute to a perception of slowness. How many times do you find yourself thinking "That took forever!".
But say you take that same route for the 3rd, 4th or nth time. Your impression of that journey will often seem much shorter. You will get lost in thought and suddenly you have already arrived.
I've seen this happen to me numerous times, whether it be a subway ride, a long walk, or a commute by car.
This example can be taken and expanded at the level of our existence. In effect, as you get older, the new sensations and stimuli become far and few between, since your knowledge of the world is wider. Most objects and experiences are no longer new and mysterious to you - you glance at them and disregard them just as quickly. You settle into a routine, which is only rarely broken by the arrival of new experiences. Working is of course the main causal factor behind that routine - but beyond the structural constraints of employment, your day to day becomes routine because most objects and experiences you encounter are already familiar.
In fact, I think a major reason why in this age, active professionals feel the urge to cram as much work and activities into their day as possible, is a fundamental anxiety with respect to this phenomena. They are compelled to fit in as many discrete experiences and objects in order to generate a sense of comfort: that time is NOT escaping from them, that all their brain cycles are being used as much as possible.
Perhaps that is one way of curing this existential anxiety. I think another way, and a better alternative, would be to seek out new experiences and learn whenever you have the chance to extract ourselves from the flight of time that occurs in the known world. Beyond the well-established contribution to increased brain elasticity and creativity, I believe this will contribute to psychological well-being.
- Nathanael
"Time flies", "life is short". These maxims are in my mind figurative ways of expressing the same and only cognitive phenomena: your perception of time gets faster as you get older.
Let me illustrate this phenomena with a basic example.
Say you travel a route for the first time. Your perception of time will be really slow since you are being bombarded with new stimuli and sensations; trying to remember the path you took; being aware of your surroundings, all of these contribute to a perception of slowness. How many times do you find yourself thinking "That took forever!".
But say you take that same route for the 3rd, 4th or nth time. Your impression of that journey will often seem much shorter. You will get lost in thought and suddenly you have already arrived.
I've seen this happen to me numerous times, whether it be a subway ride, a long walk, or a commute by car.
This example can be taken and expanded at the level of our existence. In effect, as you get older, the new sensations and stimuli become far and few between, since your knowledge of the world is wider. Most objects and experiences are no longer new and mysterious to you - you glance at them and disregard them just as quickly. You settle into a routine, which is only rarely broken by the arrival of new experiences. Working is of course the main causal factor behind that routine - but beyond the structural constraints of employment, your day to day becomes routine because most objects and experiences you encounter are already familiar.
In fact, I think a major reason why in this age, active professionals feel the urge to cram as much work and activities into their day as possible, is a fundamental anxiety with respect to this phenomena. They are compelled to fit in as many discrete experiences and objects in order to generate a sense of comfort: that time is NOT escaping from them, that all their brain cycles are being used as much as possible.
Perhaps that is one way of curing this existential anxiety. I think another way, and a better alternative, would be to seek out new experiences and learn whenever you have the chance to extract ourselves from the flight of time that occurs in the known world. Beyond the well-established contribution to increased brain elasticity and creativity, I believe this will contribute to psychological well-being.
- Nathanael
An alternative to the alternative in your last paragraph is to practice what is called "mindfulness." The idea of mindfulness is to be open and curious to such a degree that even the ordinary becomes novel.
ReplyDeleteI take your point to be that we are seeking novelty and quickly adapt to the ordinary. If we can remain mindful, we do not adapt and we continually find novelty.
One way to be mindful could be to make distinctions, e.g. this breath was [warmer, colder, faster, slower, higher-pressured, lower-pressured, more left-side dominant, less left-side dominant, etc.] than the [last, penultimate, yesterday's, last month's] breath.
Good point. It reminds me of the difference between the Heisenberg picture and the Schrodinger picture in quantum mechanics.
ReplyDeleteHeisenberg picture: State vectors stay time independent, but operators instead evolve in time.
Schrodinger picture: State vectors evolve in time, but operators stay time independent.
So seeking new experiences can entail changing in the following way.
1. External - Heisenberg picture: Keeping yourself (relatively) constant while varying your environment
2. Internal - Schrodinger picture: Keeping your environment (relatively) constant while varying yourself.
I admit these analogies are far from perfect, but it's just one way of trying to see connections between two different viewpoints.
"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."
- Niels Bohr